Historical Proofs for the Existence of Jesus

[Linusthe2nd]

It always amazes me to see people so bent on discrediting the Christian faith. What is their motivation? Why all angst over the phenomenon of Christianity? Surely they don’t really think a purely Secular Humanist world would be better? There has never been even the slightest evidence that this would be so, Perhaps they would prefer an all Muslim or an all Hindu, or Confusus world, or an all Communist world, or an all Fascist world.?

Whatever would replace Christianity, would certainly be no improvement.

Linus2nd

 

[Peter_Plato]

Aside from the fact that your linked article has nothing in particular to do with the topic under discussion, I’ll note that in that exchange between Ehrman and Carrier, Carrier appears to have gotten more of the facts correct. I’ll also note that it’s more than a little odd that in a discussion on the historical reliability of the gospels you would choose to reference a scholar who has made a career of demonstrating that the gospels are unreliable as history.

Interesting, given that Ehrman’s article is a direct rebuttal to the Carrier position that you first cited to support your case.

It has been observed that not only are many of the elements of the better mythicists’ arguments not contended by many bible scholars, they are actually supported by many of those scholars’ own works and it is only when mythicists draw the conclusion that the gospel Jesus of Nazareth did not exist that the axes are brought out.

If you read Ehrman’s article, this is one of the points he makes: that mythicists take individual scholarly points out of context to imply that these reputed scholars support the mythicists unwarranted conclusions, when the scholars themselves have drawn completely different conclusions. That is what is contentious.

 

[Lochias]

Apparently you have no tolerance for actual arguments that challenge your point of view.

That’s when most folks “take their ball and go home.”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

That’s when most folks “take their ball and go home.”

The problem is that these folks have been blinded. The truth is that if Christ appeared to them in the flesh and started working his miracles all over again, they still would not believe. The Scriptures testify that this is so. " Hearing they hear not, seeing they see not…I have blinded them lest they open their eyes and see…" In other words God has withdrawn the grace to see the Light because they have been obstinate in unbelief, or because they have been corrupted in their lifestyle.

Linus2nd

 

[cornbread_r2]

…]

If you read Ehrman’s article, this is one of the points he makes: that mythicists take individual scholarly points out of context to imply that these reputed scholars support the mythicists unwarranted conclusions, when the scholars themselves have drawn completely different conclusions. That is what is contentious.

…]

I wrote that I wasn’t going to respond to you any further, but I really can’t let this stand unchallenged.

Ehrman’s accusation was leveled specifically at Earl Doherty in Ehrman’s book, Did Jesus Exist?.

See this article by Neil Godfrey demonstrating just how ridiculous and groundless that accusation really is. It seems clear to me that what Ehrman mistook as an implication of unethical and un-scholarly behavior was really just another example of his own careless reading.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I wrote that I wasn’t going to respond to you any further, but I really can’t let this stand unchallenged.

Ehrman’s accusation was leveled specifically at Earl Doherty in Ehrman’s book, Did Jesus Exist?.

See this article by Neil Godfrey demonstrating just how ridiculous and groundless that accusation really is. It seems clear to me that what Ehrman mistook as an implication of unethical and un-scholarly behavior was really just another example of his own careless reading.

And you are missing the point entirely. We never claimed that there existed historical evidence for Christ’s existence that could not be reasonably challenged. It is our contention that the evidence is strong. And if one accepts the validity of the Scriptures, it then becomes irrefutible to reasonable minds.

One could add that there is hardly any fact of history, science, or philosophy that cannot be challenged. The " proof " of the truth of Faith is the accumulation of " reasons " offered. There is a threshold of these reasons at which it becomes unreasonable to deny the facts of Divine Revelation.

Eventhough Christ worked His miracles before thousands, hardly anyone believed Him when He said He was the Son of God and that He and the Father were one. So, there is no truth that cannot be denied. The only question is, is it reasonable to do so ? And of course God gives the grace to believe to everyone. But that grace can be lost - and can be recovered only with great difficulty, if ever.

Linus2nd

 

[Faith1960]

strangenotions.com/did-jesus-exist-an-alternate-approach/

Jimmy Akin has a very interesting article dealing with historical proofs for the existence of Jesus. Here is just a bit of it. Well worth reading.

" References to Christianity
Instead of looking, in the first instance, for references to Jesus, we can look at references to the Christian movement itself and see what we can learn about it.

Of course, the same sources that refer to Jesus tend to refer to the Christian movement. That means that we can quickly establish a number of quite early references to Christianity.

It is mentioned by:

◦Suetonius, writing around A.D. 121
◦Tacitus, writing around A.D. 116
◦Pliny the Younger, writing in A.D. 110 or 111
◦The Emperor Trajan, writing back to Pliny in A.D. 110 or 111
◦And Josephus, writing around A.D. 93
The inclusion of Josephus in this list is not dependent on the famous Testimonium Flavianum found in his Antiquities 18:3:3.

Even setting aside that reference, which is partially corrupted, Josephus elsewhere refers to Jesus having followers (noting that he “was called Christ”) in a passage for which we have no evidence of manuscript corruption (Antiquities 20:9:1).

We thus have multiple references for the existence of a Christian movement that date to the end of the first century and the beginning of the second. "

Linus2nd

I can’t believe that there are still people who dispute the historical fact of Jesus. Okay, I get that not everyone’s a Christian, but to deny the fact Jesus lived is just plain stupid.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Aside from the fact that your linked article has nothing in particular to do with the topic under discussion, I’ll note that in that exchange between Ehrman and Carrier, Carrier appears to have gotten more of the facts correct. I’ll also note that it’s more than a little odd that in a discussion on the historical reliability of the gospels you would choose to reference a scholar who has made a career of demonstrating that the gospels are unreliable as history.

Not true. Ehrman is a scholar of New Testament texts. Why would he waste his time on what he considers to be historically unreliable? Ehrman’s work is based on the authenticity of Paul, in particular, but also to a lesser extent on parts of the Gospels. His contention is that divinity claims about Jesus are not necessarily established by the body of writings which can be authentically traced to within the time period immediately subsequent to Jesus’ life and death. Ehrman, I think, would contend that Paul’s writings can be relaibly traced to that period, but the Gospels, on the whole, not so.

It has been observed that not only are many of the elements of the better mythicists’ arguments not contended by many bible scholars, they are actually supported by many of those scholars’ own works and it is only when mythicists draw the conclusion that the gospel Jesus of Nazareth did not exist that the axes are brought out.

That is precisely the point in contention. If it were true that many of the elements of bible scholarship point in the direction of the mythicists claims being true, then what you (and Fuller, I suppose) are saying is that all bible scholars, except those very few who are mythicists, are either dishonest or incompetent scholars since their scholarship points invariably towards mythicism, which demonstrates they are either dishonest or incompetent in their very denial. Yet, the fact that almost universally Biblical scholars disagree with Doherty’s claims makes Fuller’s attempt to discredit Ehrman virtually without merit.

This is Ehrman’s point:

I am afraid that in this case Carrier misses my point. It is true that Doherty acknowledges that scholars disagree with him on this, that, or the other thing. But the way he builds his arguments typically makes it appear that he is writing as a scholar among scholars, and that all of these scholars (with him in the mix) have disagreements on various issues (disagreements with him, with one another). One is left with the impression that like these other scholars, Doherty is building a tenable case that some points of which would be granted by some scholars but not others, and that the entire overall thesis, therefore, would also be acceptable to at least some of the scholars he engages with.
The reality, however, is that every single scholar of early Christianity that Doherty appeals to fundamentally disagrees with his major thesis (Jesus did not exist). This is completely unlike other works of true scholarship, where scholars are cited as having disagreements on various points – but not, universally, as an entire body, on the entire premise and virtually all the claims (foundation and superstructure). I was urging that Doherty should come clean and inform his readers in clear terms that even though he quotes scholars on one issue or another, not a single one of these scholars (or indeed, any recognized scholar in the field of scholarship that he is addressing) agrees with the radical thesis of his book.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I can’t believe that there are still people who dispute the historical fact of Jesus. Okay, I get that not everyone’s a Christian, but to deny the fact Jesus lived is just plain stupid.

They are ideologues and think they are too clever by half. You have to remember that our entire educational system from pre-school to the university has been taken over by Secular Humanists. These kids have been indoctrinated for about 16 years or longer, the media has become almost totally atheistic and absolutely immoral. So naturally people of this mind set think they are in the driver’s seat and only idiots could disagree with their intellectual elitism. It is the typical mentality of those who think they are gifted and special. Don’t let bother you.

 

[cornbread_r2]

Disbelief in supernatural events does not necessarily lead to disbelief in the bare existence of the historical Jesus. If anyone doubts that, I can point them to any number of sites where persons who hold those opinions gather.)

And you are missing the point entirely. We never claimed that there existed historical evidence for Christ’s existence that could not be reasonably challenged. It is our contention that the evidence is strong. And if one accepts the validity of the Scriptures, it then becomes irrefutible to reasonable minds.

As far as I can tell, the two strongest pieces of extra-biblical evidence for the veracity of the gospel Jesus are Tacitus and Josephus. The information for Christ and Christians in Tacitus is unsourced and non-contemporaneous. Historicists assume he used Roman records and not Christian informants, but there’s no evidence for that; it’s pure speculation. The so-called Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus is widely regarded, even among apologists, to be heavily interpolated by Christian scribes and was at one time considered to be useless (by Albert Schweitzer and others) in the quest for the historical figure of Jesus. If it’s true that those are the best, then it would appear to me that the evidence is not nearly what it’s cracked up to be.

One could add that there is hardly any fact of history, science, or philosophy that cannot be challenged. The " proof " of the truth of Faith is the accumulation of " reasons " offered. There is a threshold of these reasons at which it becomes unreasonable to deny the facts of Divine Revelation.

Even though Christ worked His miracles before thousands, hardly anyone believed Him when He said He was the Son of God and that He and the Father were one. So, there is no truth that cannot be denied. The only question is, is it reasonable to do so ? And of course God gives the grace to believe to everyone. But that grace can be lost - and can be recovered only with great difficulty, if ever.

Linus2nd

If the mythicist hypothesis is correct, then Christians in the 1st century found value, meaning, faith and hope in Christ’s revelations even though he didn’t exist on Earth. In that billions of Christians today also find faith, hope and meaning in a Jesus who does not exist on Earth, I’m not sure why belief in an Earthly existing Jesus even matters.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Read this recently published CA Blog article on ad hominem and then tell me again that this

doesn’t qualify as ad hom…

That statement doesn’t engage the historicity argument – it is an argument “against the man” and appears to attempt to bias the discussion and discredit my position by linking it to a generally despised personal philosophy. If that’s a valid argument, then am I allowed to posit that Christians only believe in Jesus’s Earthly existence because they’re too afraid of Hell not to? (Not only is my personal philosophy irrelevant to the topic under discussion, but the premise is also fatally flawed. Disbelief in supernatural events does not necessarily lead to disbelief in the bare existence of the historical Jesus. If anyone doubts that, I can point them to any number of sites where persons who hold those opinions gather.)

Actually it doesn’t qualify as an ad hominem because I didn’t claim your argument was bad because you’re an atheist or materialist which would be an ad hominem. The issue was that you portrayed my initial argument in as poor a form as you could muster in order to discredit it. I answered your poor portrayal with a more adequate one and then wondered what motive you could have for being less than fair regarding an argument for the historicity of the Gospels. That is not an ad hominem precisely because I didn’t attempt to deny the validity of your argument because of anything about you. In fact you didn’t even present an argument, just a bad rendering of mine. I was merely wondering what your reason for doing so could have been. Notice that ad hominem is a fallacious rebuttal to an argument. You didn’t present an argument so I couldn’t have tried to rebut it with an ad hominem.

In a court of law, this would be seen more as a credibility of the witness issue. You could have rendered my argument poorly precisely because you have motives that are biased against the conclusion. Do you deny that you are an athiest or that you disbelieve in the supernatural? What other reason would you have for a poor rendering of an argument that supports a theistic view and argues for supernatural events? I challenge anyone with an understanding of fallacies to go back to Post #15 and following and decide for themselves if I tried to argue against an argument of yours by committing a fallacy, i.e., that your argument was bad merely because you are an atheist or materialist. My point was that your portrayal of my argument was inexplicably weak possibly because your atheism has biased you, an entirely different claim. Subtle perhaps, but very different.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’ll also note that it’s more than a little odd that in a discussion on the historical reliability of the gospels you would choose to reference a scholar who has made a career of demonstrating that the gospels are unreliable as history.

Why would it be odd to reference a scholar who is not a believing Christian, and therefore unbiased towards the reliability of Scriptures, to vouch for the historicity of Jesus?

So you want it both ways:

1. The Gospels could not have been historical because they were written by biased individuals (early Christians.).
2. We cannot use scholars who are not Christians (Ehrman) who are, therefore, not so biased, to establish the reliability of Scripture because…?

Well, maybe because they are not Christians and so might be prone to dishonesty because they might not abide by the Christian virtue of honesty, perhaps?

Explain, again, why someone like Ehrman, who is not Christian, should NOT be used to support the historicity and reliability of Scripture!

Why don’t you admit that you are guilty of a badly chosen ad hominem in trying to discredit Ehrman and my citing of his work?

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Of course Jesus existed; hardly anyone doubts that.

What is really doubted is the miracles he supposedly preformed, considering there are only a few accounts of those miracles, which were recorded hundreds of years after Jesus was even around.

I think I remember reading somewhere that the Church fathers made references to some portion of all the New Testament books before the first century was out.

From FF Bruce “The New Testament Documents - Are They Reliable” -

"At a very early date it appears that the four Gospels were united in one collection. They must have been brought together very soon after the writing of the Gospel according to John. This fourfold collection was known as “The Gospel” in the singular, not “The Gospels” in the plural; there was only one Gospel, narrated in four records, distinguished as ‘according to Matthew’, ‘according to Mark’, and so on. Around AD115 Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, refers to “The Gospel” as an authoritive writing, and as he knew more than one of the four “Gospels” it may well be that by “The Gospel” sans phrase he means the fourfold collection which went by that name.

About AD 170 an Assyrian Christian named Tatian turned the fourfold Gospel into a contiuous narrative or “Harmony of the Gospels”, which for long was the favourite if not the official form of the fourfold Gospel in the Assyrian Church… a fragment of Tatian’s Diastessaron in Greek was discorved in the year 1933 at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates…"

The Gospels contain the miracles of Jesus, and they were around long before “hundreds of years” had elapsed. They were referred to around the end of the first century AD.

Further

“The earliest list of New Testament books of which we have definite knowledge was drawn up at Rome by the heretic Marcion about 140…Marcion’s canon consisted of two parts: (a) an expurgated edition of the third Gospel, which is the least Jewish of the Gospels, being written by the Gentile Luke; and (b) ten of the Pauline Epistles…”

They weren’t “recorded hundreds of years after Jesus was even around” at all, if you don’t mind.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the Church fathers made references to some portion of all the New Testament books before the first century was out.

I’ll modify this quote and again defer to FF Bruce in “The New Testament Documents - Are They Reliable” -

“… (in) the letter sent to the Corinthian Church by Clement, Bishop of Rome, about AD96, we find fairly certain quotations from the common tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, from Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, I Peter, and possible quotations from other books of the New Testament. In the letters written by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, as he journeyed to his martyrdom in Rome in AD115, there are reasonably identifiable quotations from Matthew, John, Romans, I & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Peter. His younger contemporary, Polycarp, in a letter to the Philippians (c. 120) quotes from the common tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, from Acts, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Hebrews, 1 Peter and 1 John.”

Hundreds of years? Sorry. They were in existence before the first century was out, and well known to the Church fathers of that time, despite the lack of modern printing methods, and the painstaking method of writing then in operation, not just in Rome, but also in Antioch.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Disbelief in supernatural events does not necessarily lead to disbelief in the bare existence of the historical Jesus. If anyone doubts that, I can point them to any number of sites where persons who hold those opinions gather.)

I think you are stretching the definition. After all, Peter is stating an obvious fact. He is simply pointing that out to you. And I disagree that the argument is fatally flawed. Christ claimed to be the Son of God, and the Son of God maintains His identity with the Spiritual Substance of the Godhead and with the Person of the Father. And, by the way, I have only met one Atheist on these Forums who abides by your strict standards. All the others, can be quite offensive, and not just splitting hairs offensive. I shall take special notice of your own posts to see if you follow your own standards.

As far as I can tell, the two strongest pieces of extra-biblical evidence for the veracity of the gospel Jesus are Tacitus and Josephus. The information for Christ and Christians in Tacitus is unsourced and non-contemporaneous. Historicists assume he used Roman records and not Christian informants, but there’s no evidence for that; it’s pure speculation. The so-called Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus is widely regarded, even among apologists, to be heavily interpolated by Christian scribes and was at one time considered to be useless (by Albert Schweitzer and others) in the quest for the historical figure of Jesus. If it’s true that those are the best, then it would appear to me that the evidence is not nearly what it’s cracked up to be.

You are welcome to your opinions. I disagree.

If the mythicist hypothesis is correct, then Christians in the 1st century found value, meaning, faith and hope in Christ’s revelations even though he didn’t exist on Earth. In that billions of Christians today also find faith, hope and meaning in a Jesus who does not exist on Earth, I’m not sure why belief in an Earthly existing Jesus even matters.

I should point out that the " mythicist " hypothesis is a hypothesis that cannot be proven and is itself an ad hominem, since, as you say, " it is an argument “against the man” and appears to attempt to bias the discussion and discredit my position by linking it to a generally despised personal philosophy…" Of course " the man " becomes " christians " and " my position " becomes " our position " and the Christian view is certainly " a generally despised …philosophy " among Atheists in general, at least the ones who " come out " in various discussion forums and who make the debating circuit and who are popular anti-Christian authors.

Linus2nd

 

[cornbread_r2]

Peter Plato:

As I have the annual Secular Humanist Orgy/Seminar on the Destruction of Civilization to attend, it will be a day or two before I respond to your latest.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Peter Plato:

As I have the annual Secular Humanist Orgy/Seminar on the Destruction of Civilization to attend, it will be a day or two before I respond to your latest.

I heard there was one scheduled, but I thought it was only a myth. I’ll try to be out of town since orgies of destruction are just not my thing,

 

[Peter_Plato]

If the mythicist hypothesis is correct, then Christians in the 1st century found value, meaning, faith and hope in Christ’s revelations even though he didn’t exist on Earth. In that billions of Christians today also find faith, hope and meaning in a Jesus who does not exist on Earth, I’m not sure why belief in an Earthly existing Jesus even matters.

Ah, yes, the infamous bait and switch argument. Get a Christian to admit that a mythical Christ is just as valid as an incarnate one and, once that bit of inane theology is assented to, then switch to “What a clod for believing a mythical being has any relevance to real existence!”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Peter Plato:

As I have the annual Secular Humanist Orgy/Seminar on the Destruction of Civilization to attend, it will be a day or two before I respond to your latest.

Gee, you do have an ideology after all. We shall keep that in mind. But you really didn’t have to tell us, we knew all along from you consistent line of argument.

Linus2nd

 

[Peter_Plato]

Ah, yes, the infamous bait and switch argument. Get a Christian to admit that a mythical Christ is just as valid as an incarnate one and, once that bit of inane theology is assented to, then switch to “What a clod for believing a mythical being has any relevance to real existence!”

Do you think we are all naive patsies? Shame on you for even pretending such nonsense befits an attempt at a post! Where is the standard retort about a bridge for sale?

Given the above, an ad hominem looks to be an example of philosophical brilliance. Attack the man… Hmmm… I never thought of that…

I apologize for the tone and sarcasm in this post. It was not called for.